A matter of time

passing. Tuesday morning, at 8:30, Cash got a buzz from Tom Kurland on the booking desk.

'Norm? Got a live one down here. Voluntary confession on that John Doe stiff from last week.'

Ah. The genie from the bottle. Cash brightened. 'Hey. Good. Bring him up. You made my day, Tom.'

'On the way.' Mysterious laughter lurked round the fringes of Kurland's voice.

'Hey, John…' he called from his gym locker of an office.

A florid, gray-haired man with the build of an athlete long gone to seed, who looked like he ought to be traveling in a cloud of flies, pushed through the main door. ' 'Lo, Beth,' he said.

'Winehead Andy,' Cash muttered. 'The Prince of Hungary. I'll get you for this, Kurland.'

Officer Tavares tried stopping the man. He just grinned and kept coming, with a little wrist-flick of a greeting to Old Man Railsback, who was snoring in a chair in a far corner.

'It's all right, Beth.'

' 'Lo, Sarge.'

'Hi, Andy. What is it this time?' As if he didn't know. The man, who claimed to be a deposed Prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (he was neither old enough nor, insofar as Cash had been able to determine, did he speak a word of German or Magyar), was, with a blush, going to admit that, in a fit of madness, he had slain the mystery man. Andy swore that he was the Jekyll-and-Hyde type.

'Can't live with it anymore, Sarge. Had to turn myself in…'

The man had confessed so often that Cash no longer found him amusing.

Neither did Lieutenant Railsback. 'What the hell is that wino doing in my squad room?' he thundered from his office.

'The usual,' Beth replied, returning to her work.

Rather than come out looking for trouble, Railsback slammed his door.

'All right, Andy. You know the routine,' said Cash. 'How'd you do it?'

'Knife. In the back. Grabbed him from behind and stabbed him in the heart…'

'Wrong-o, Andy. You lose again. Think it out better next time. That's hard for a right-handed man.'

'Just testing, Sarge.' He stopped smiling. 'I really strangled him…'

'Missed again.' Cash shook his head. He didn't understand. Andy's sole ambition seemed to be to get himself put away.

There had been a time when he was a semipermanent resident in the holdover downstairs, especially in winter, but these days every room with a lock on its door was packed with genuine bandits.

'Shot him?'

'Andy, here's two bucks. Go over to the Rite-Way and tell

Sarah I said to give you the breakfast special.'

Andy took the money. 'Sarge, one of these days you're going to catch me red-handed. Then you'll believe me. It's my mind, see. I can't remember afterward…'

'I know, Andy. Till I do, you'll keep getting away with it. Meantime, I've got to go by the book. Now do me a favor. Go eat breakfast.'

Andy stood tall as he left. A wino, yes, but he walked like a prince.

'Beth, remind me that Tom Kurland is one up on me.'

'Us.' Her dark eyes sparkled mischieviously. 'I'm working on it already.'

'Make it vicious.' He walked to a window. 'He's out the door already.'

Below, Andy scampered through traffic.

'Liquor store?'

'You must be part Gypsy. Anything on my corpse?'

'No. No ID. No claim on the body. FBI says they've given up trying to locate prints.'

'Norm,' said Railsback, 'you get rid of him yet?'

'He just needed the price of a bottle, Hank.'

'About your mystery corpse. 'Bout time you got it certified nonhomicide, isn't it? Get it off our backs? I don't like it. I want it pushed back, out of the way.'

'Not yet. Maybe in a couple days.'

It's really bizarre, Cash thought, the way this is affecting us. Railsback would not have let go of any other case for weeks or months. But with this one even the marginally involved people, like Beth, were behaving strangely.

Once Railsback did get it shoved back, little happened.

Events elsewhere devoured Cash's attention and emotions.

IV. On the X Axis;